Dead Past
by Ray.A.Callen
Summary: When professional collides with personal, Wendell must choose who his loyalties lie with. Will he uncover his secrets and work the case or will he aid old allies and risk losing it all?


Angela thought that the face she constructed was horrible. Not the face itself; the owner would've been beautiful, but the bones she had drawn from distorted the image. She altered the boy's face until it resembled something of a living human before calling Brennan through.

'Do we have an id for the child?' She asked as she walked in, hands full of papers and hair swept back into a ponytail. Her tone didn't represent the details covered by the conversation between the doctor and the artist and Angela wondered how Brennan wasn't affected by the dead child lying on her table.

'Yes, Liam Harris, a 15 year old boy found in a back alley, reported missing _seven_ years ago.'

Brennan looked at the holographic image of the youth before returning her gaze to Angela.

'_Seven _years? He went missing when he was eight? Was it a kidnapping?' Angela sighed before bringing various records up onto the screen in place of the teen's face.

'No; a few kids went missing from his neighbourhood at the same time and Missing Persons thought that they had all ran away together.'

Brennan nodded in thought before turning to Angela.

'If Liam is dead then the others may be too, and if they're not then maybe they could give us some information on the case. Can you get me a list of the names of the others that went missing on the same night in Liam's area?'

'Sure, no problem sweetie.' Angela could hear the faint clicking of Brennan's heels moving out of her office and she waited until no noise could be heard before sighing loudly. She looked at the boy's face and hoped that the other children had not been met with a similar fate before turning back to her screen and searching for the others' names.

Wendell was examining a crack on the skeleton's 5th rib that indicated blunt force trauma before noting that it had occurred a few years prior to his death.

Angela approached the platform quietly but paused before approaching the intern. She couldn't be sure that it was him and if it was, she wasn't sure how he would take the news.

'Wendell? Can I speak to you?' The intern, rather curious about the tone of the request, nodded before continuing to examine the remains.

'Alone, Wendell. My office? I think we should talk.' Wendell frowned before carefully returning the rib to its place and following the artist into her office. He noted that she closed the door behind them and his gut tied into a knot with dread.

'Is everything okay, Angela? You seem agitated.' The half-smile Wendell tossed her way didn't make her feel any better about delivering the news.

'Did you ever, um, run away, as a kid?' Angela saw Wendell eye the door as she began and the hope that she had been mistaken was eradicated.

'Yeah, but how is this relevant to the case?'

Angela thought on how to continue before motioning to the couch for Wendell to sit. After brief hesitation, he took up the farthest seat and eyed her cautiously.

'Liam Harris… he's the boy on the table. The, uh, dead one, he ran away with some kids from his neighbourhood and I looked up the names. I saw yours and, I just thought… what happened?'

Wendell's face contorted and he stared at the carpet with knitted brows. There was a long silence before he crossed his arms over his chest and replied, without looking up.

'Liam and a boy called Danny were the youngest. They lived down the street from us. We didn't have any money, but there was this park that we all used to hang out in. Liam and Danny were foster kids with mean old man. They had a sister, Tara, she sometimes came out too. She was meant to come with us that night but, she, well she didn't show up and Liam and Danny came and they just said that she couldn't come anymore.'

Angela understood. She wished that she didn't but she had too much experience with cases like these now that she knew exactly what Wendell was talking about.

'I was fourteen. Second oldest. There was this guy older than me, Miles, he was sixteen. Rough kid, but he looked out for us and he was a good guy underneath it all. There were seven of us together, same area around the park. Danny, Liam, Miles, me and there was a girl called Haley and this brother and sister, Benny and Sarah. Haley was only ten but she'd been around the block. She bossed most of us around.' Recalling the children who had been Wendell's friends sent a shadow of a smile across his face.

'Benny wasn't the smartest, but he did alright for himself. He was only eleven but he was the one who could steal the most without getting caught, so he got us most of our food after that. Sarah was same age as me, a few months younger but tough as nails. Set Miles straight a few times. Miles had been living rough for a couple of weeks and he'd found this place for us to stay if we wanted. There was everything we needed, and there were other kids too. He said that it would be safer there and he could take us. Danny and Liam had it bad and they wanted in so they agreed. Benny and Sarah had lost their mum when they were little and their dad was a drunk. He didn't even know they were gone most of the time. I never saw that man sober, and I don't think I want to. Nobody knew what Haley's deal was; she was kind of secretive, didn't want anyone up in her business. Miles had been living with his brother at the time. They didn't get along because his brother was always bringing girl's home and Miles said, with the look of them, it wasn't right. Um, Jack, or James, I think. The brother that is.'

Angela nodded through gritted teeth.

'James Andrew Davy.'

Noticing Angela's tone and the way she was looking him up and down, Wendell felt inclined to put her worries at ease. He hesitated before deciding to share his reason for leaving with the others.

'My mum was good to me Angela. She worked two jobs to try and save up for me to go to college, but it always got stolen anyway. She wasn't around much and we were going to lose everything. The bills were too much and I was too young to work. We were going to be homeless. My dad… he died from cancer when I was twelve and the day Miles talked to us about this place, I watched the repo men take away my father's belongings whilst my mother cried. I figured if I went with the others, my mum would be able to keep the house and we'd both have somewhere to live and food to eat. So I left her a letter and took off. That was how they knew we ran off. My letter said _'I have to go with Miles and the others' _and Missing Persons took one look at that and closed our case.'

Angela sat next to Wendell in silence. She was grateful that his parents hadn't been bad to him but tears prickled the corners of her eyes at the thought of seven kids living in some abandoned warehouse. She had known that Wendell had been a street kid; Hodgins had told her a few months ago, but she had assumed it to have been short term and not as rough as the story Wendell had recanted.

'Where did you all go?'

At this question, Wendell shot up from the couch and began hastily towards the door.

'I can't tell you that. The others are better off there than in the system. They get clean water, food, shelter… you don't understand. If the FBI finds out… no… I'm really sorry Angela but no.'

Angela watched Wendell depart before slumping back into the couch lost in thought. With this discovery and the dead boy in the foyer, the Missing Persons case would undoubtedly be reopened and Angela wondered what kind of harm that would do to Wendell's psyche. She would have to tell Booth, of course, for the case of Liam Harris, but she also made a mental note to visit Sweets to talk to him about Wendell's involvement; she didn't want Wendell to put himself in danger or to jeopardise his career, and she wasn't sure that he was thinking clearly at the moment.

**AN: Im from England, so I realise that some spellings/references may differ from what you're used to.**

**AN2: As Always, Please Review**

**_Next up: Angela talks to Sweets and Wendell runs into Bones and Booth at the warehouse. Will he protect his homeless allies and risk losing everything, or join forces with his co-workers to help bring in his friends?_  
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